Marijuana monoliths

Here’s a test print – a ‘make-ready’ – of Obelisks, which will accompany the limited hemp paper edition of Humor. As you might be able to see, it’s not quite right yet and the watermarked minotaur is, um, upside down. The whole project has been a lot more complex than anybody imagined… It turned out that getting the cannabis bale out of Spain was the easy bit. Things got tricky later, as the ‘dandy’ (the thing that makes the watermark in the paper making process) was made somewhere in the far north of Scotland, the paper was made in Hertfordshire, which is basically next to London, and neither of these processes were easy, as this is the first time that paper has been made out of cannabis in the UK for ages.

However, it’s now done, and shortly I’m off to somewhere (not sure where yet) to sign the edition of 250 prints AND 250 books. That too will take a little while.

Here’s the details of the edition:

“The book is a sewn hardback and will be signed, numbered and printed on a unique special making of hemp paper, each page alternately watermarked with Donwood’s ‘weeping minotaur’ and the Faber colophon. The front and back endpapers will carry separate Donwood designs as will the book’s cover.

There will also be a separate clothbound portfolio, containing an exclusive signed and numbered Donwood litho print Obelisks on 300gsm handmade hemp paper, with minotaur watermark.

The book and the portfolio will be inserted into a printed rigid slipcase covered in a Donwood design. Slipcases to be individually wrapped, labelled and numbered in sequence to match the run.

It’s occurred to me that some may not know that cannabis, hemp, marijuana, grass, weed etc are the same plant, and that the plant has a long and extremely fruitful relationship with people. If you were wondering why all this is important, here’s a paragraph from Jack Herer’s book about hemp, ‘ The Emperor Wears No Clothes’…

“Until 1883, from 75-90 percent of all paper in the world was made with cannabis hemp fiber, including that for books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, newspapers, etc. The Gutenberg Bible (in the 15th century); Pantagruel and the Herb pantagruelion, Rabelais (16th century); King James Bible (17th century); Thomas Paine’s pamphlets, The Rights of Man, Common Sense, The Age of Reason (18th century); the works of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas; Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (19th century); and just about everything else was printed on hemp paper.”

And that’s only paper – hemp was used widely. Its prohibition may have been one of the more blunderingly stupid actions of history, but if you doubt this and would be inclined to find out more, I thoroughly recommend Jack Herer’s book. His website is here.